Website- Peak Freak Expeditions

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Ready To Roll

Namaste everyone from Kathmandu!

We are all one big happy family here in Kathmandu. Everyone has arrived, gear sorted and it's time to roll upon completion of a few more chores. One of them being the formalities at the Ministry of Tourism tomorrow, this always proves to be interesting.

The team is all bonding really well, mostly because we all know each other and have climbed together in Nepal before, this always makes for a great start to an expedition. We welcome to the group our team of base camp trekkers and Island Peak climbers in joining us on this journey.

My dear friend Elizabeth Hawley called today to summon me for a visit at her home. I feel honoured to be her friend for so many years, she can't get around very well these days. The past few expeditions we've been meeting this way catching up on family and life. Contrary to what people may think we don't even talk about climbing. Our friendship is more than that, and she's dear to me. She celebrated her 90th birthday in November, she's super spry and quicker than a whip. Reminds me of my grandmother who is just a few years older.

Power outages are common here and right now we are experiencing 11 hour outages. Kathmandu operates on hydro so this tells us just how dry it is in the mountains this year. Unfortunately it's generators that keep communications and kitchen gadgets in the restaurants going.

Everyone is looking forward to getting out of the city and up in the mountains. Barking dogs are out of control again making it difficult to get a good nights sleep. We'll be checking back here tomorrow with more information on what we're up to.